


If You Hold Me (I'll Never Be Lonely)

by flipflop_diva



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Pre-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Team Bonding, Team Feels, Team as Family, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-01
Updated: 2018-10-01
Packaged: 2019-06-13 21:12:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15373416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flipflop_diva/pseuds/flipflop_diva
Summary: Sure, Tony had gone through the effort of decorating floors for all the other Avengers and there was more than ample space in Stark Tower, but did that mean he really wanted them all to move in with him? That was ridiculous. Right?





	If You Hold Me (I'll Never Be Lonely)

Tony had been having the same argument with himself for two weeks. Really, there was no reason he should be listening to a dead guy. Just because Nick Fury wasn’t here physically to explain — _again_ — how, since Tony had gone through the effort of decorating floors for all the other Avengers and there was more than ample space in Stark Tower, he should just invite them all in to live with him like some weird team sleepover that never ends, didn’t mean that his words should be forever engraved in Tony’s mind.

But yet they were.

It was ridiculous, Tony told himself. It was his tower, his money. He could do want he wanted. Even if that meant designing rooms for people he had effectively worked together with once. On one very minor occasion.

And it wasn’t like SHIELD, before it fell or whatever the hell happened to it thanks to one Steve Rogers, was going to pay him to house other people. They weren’t even paying him for being a part of the Avengers — which they hadn’t even wanted him to be a part of in the first place.

So just because Fury had somehow found out about the redecorating process — Tony had checked the tower for spy cams but he hadn’t found anything, but someone out there was sure chatty — did not mean Tony had to do what he said.

Dead or alive.

He definitely didn’t have to do what he said.

“But why did you design them all floors if you never wanted to live with them?” Rhodey asked, for probably the ten millionth time in the past couple weeks. Tony was beginning to regret inviting the guy over for dinner so often.

“Maybe it was fun,” Tony answered. “Maybe I couldn’t sleep. Maybe it was just something I did.”

“Maybe you’re lonely,” Rhodey said. Luckily he didn’t add “since you broke up with Pepper and she moved to Malibu.”

“Nope,” Tony said automatically. “Not lonely.”

“Well,” Rhodey said, and later, Tony would think that if Fury hadn’t been dead, he would have thought the man had gotten to his so-called best friend, “did you ever consider that maybe the rest of them are lonely and need a place to call home?”

•••

He asked Bruce first. It made sense. They had hung out a time or five since New York. Bruce had some ideas about tech upgrades and uniform enhancements, and they had even discussed a far-fetched idea Tony’d had, about a program that would let the Iron Legion operate independently of human input, almost like a global peacekeeping program.

“I mean, I have a gigantic lab.” Tony had decided that was the best way to introduce the subject. “We could get a lot more done if we lived in the same place.”

Bruce had grinned at him like he was Tony’s boyfriend being asked to start living together and even went so far as to hug him.

“It’s just for convenience,” Tony said.

“It’ll be great!” Bruce said.

He asked Steve next, mostly because Captain America was the easiest to find of the other four. The guy hadn’t even bothered to move out of the apartment he had before SHIELD fell.

“You could probably work on your security,” Tony had said as a way of greeting when Steve answered the door.

Steve had shrugged. “I’m not here much anyway.”

He didn’t elaborate, but the apartment did appear a bit on the too clean and empty side. And also very small.

“I have a proposal,” Tony said. For Steve, he went with the whole idea of a team, getting everyone together in one place to train, with the good Captain America as their leader.

“What are we training for exactly?” Steve asked. “Another alien invasion?”

“I’m sure you don’t think every Hydra cell in the world has just disappeared,” Tony said. “You don’t want to get them? Make the world a safer place and all that?”

“The others are in?” Steve’s voice was cautious, but Tony could see the flicker of hope in his eyes. The idea of being needed, of having a mission again, was getting to him.

“They will be,” Tony said, “if you are.”

“I am,” Steve answered.

Thor came next. Tony left a message with Jane to have her boyfriend call the next time he was in town, and two days later, an Asgardian god appeared in a flash of lightning on his roof.

“Way to be inconspicuous,” Tony said as Thor swept him up in a giant bear hug.

“Stark, my good friend!” Thor said, finally placing him back on his feet. “Jane tells me you wish to meet with me!”

Tony showed him the apartment he had set up for him.

“An entire cupboard of coffee and Pop-Tarts!” Thor exclaimed.

“And anything else you need,” Tony said. “JARVIS can get you whatever you’d like.”

“There is a lot of these Hydra that needs fighting?” Thor asked.

“Too many.”

“And you think they have the scepter that my brother once used?”

“I do.”

“Well, then, we shall fight and get it back!”

Clint and Natasha were harder to find. Tony had to ask Maria Hill — his new public relations assistant — for help. A couple days later he met Clint at a diner down the street from Stark Tower.

“You want to put the Avengers back together?” Clint said. “And you want us all to live together?”

“I just figured it would be easier.”

“You think it would be easy for a crazy billionaire, a guy who turns into a humongous green monster, a super-soldier, an Asgardian god, a former assassin who is pretty sure you hate her and, well, me to all be roommates?”

“Yup,” Tony said. He took a bite of the exceptionally good cheeseburger he was eating. “Come on,” he said. “Don’t you miss the action without SHIELD? Don’t you want to get back into the game? Hydra’s out there, and we can stop them. We’re probably the only ones who can.” He paused for another bite. “And by the way, I don’t hate Natasha.”

“I think you missed us,” Clint said.

“I think _you_ missed us,” Tony said.

Clint stuck a fry in his mouth. He didn’t deny it. But he did call Natasha. At least Tony assumed he did, because three days later she appeared in Tony’s lab, almost giving him a heart attack when he looked up and there she was.

“JARVIS, what the hell?” he said.

“She overrode security protocols, Sir.”

“And you let her?”

“Obviously it’s something you and Banner should be working on,” Natasha said. She was staring at him with that cool expression she always had. Damn, the woman could be unnerving.

“What are you doing here?” Tony said to her, hoping she couldn’t actually hear how loud his heart was pounding.

“You tell me,” she said.

“I’m guessing Barton already told you everything, so there’s really not much to say.”

She shrugged.

“Are you expecting me to plead and beg?” he said.

She pursed her lips. “You don’t even like me. Or trust me. But you want to live with me?”

“It’s a team thing. You’re part of it.”

“I don’t have to be.”

“Do you not want to be?”

“Do you not want me to be?”

They stared at each other after that, neither of them moving. Or blinking. Finally, Tony gave up and let her win.

“I don’t hate you,” he told her. “Do I trust you? Not with my secrets. But do I trust you want to hunt down Hydra as much as anyone? Yes. Do I think you’re going to let someone kill me? Probably not intentionally. We’ll be fine.”

Her expression didn’t falter, not even a flicker, but Tony had a weird feeling she was feeling uncertain about the whole thing.

“Look,” he said with a shrug. “I haven’t really done the whole roommate thing before either, but separate floors. We don’t even have to interact. Just makes it easier for that whole going off and defeating Hydra thing.”

“Fine,” Natasha said.

“Fine? So that’s a yes?”

“Don’t push me,” she said.

“Not pushing,” he said, but that didn’t stop him from grinning the second she turned around to head out.

•••

Move-in day went better than expected. In the days leading up to their arrival, Tony had gone over and over the layouts for each person, worried again that he was making a mistake, that someone wouldn’t like something.

But he couldn’t have been more wrong.

Bruce didn’t stop grinning the entire day, after he realized his floor was one above Tony’s and also featured his own smaller science lab he didn’t have to share (but that he repeatedly offered to share for any small projects Tony might want to work on that they didn’t want messing up the big lab). Thor made everyone coffee and Pop-Tarts and asked JARVIS to order in the “most Migardian meal ever”. Clint whooped and hollered at his archery range and offered lessons to everyone within earshot. Steve smiled and flushed when he saw his private gym and thanked Tony profusely.

But it was Natasha’s reaction that got to Tony the most. He watched her explore all the rooms on her floor, taking everything in, not really reacting until she opened the door to the ballet studio. Her hand faltered a little on the doorknob and he saw surprise flicker across her face. She stood there for a long time, just staring, and then she turned to him, eyes wide, a smile — an actual real smile — on her face.

“Thank you,” she whispered, and he pretended he didn’t hear the tiny quiver in her voice.

“You’re welcome,” he said, and he left her alone to do whatever she needed to do.

That night, they all ate dinner together, sitting in the brand new kitchen Tony’d had constructed as part of a common area floor. They talked about training and where to start looking for Hydra, and then they started talking about other things. How Clint could probably fit into the air ducts. How Steve had brought all his drawing supplies. How Bruce had a new idea to make Clint’s and Natasha’s uniforms more protected for them. How Thor wanted to taste everyone’s favorite restaurants. How Tony met Natasha and how impressed he had been of her takedown of Happy.

They finished the night in the living room area, lounging on pillows on the floor and playing Monopoly into the wee hours of the morning until it was just Steve and Tony battling it out as the other four slept in various positions on the couches and the floor.

•••

It turned out that was only the beginning. Life in Stark Tower — which became Avengers Tower about a month into their stay when everyone finally realized that this was permanent and no one was going to leave — was an adventure, but one of the more fun adventures Tony had ever had.

They trained every day, Steve and Natasha sparring with each other, Clint practicing on every target Bruce and Tony could make him, Tony testing the limits of his upgraded suits. And they went off on missions at least three times a week, taking down Hydra cells one at a time.

But there was more than just training and missions. Movie night was every Thursday, and every Thursday there were at least two arguments over what to watch, even though it was supposed to rotate through the group. Clint always made the popcorn, Steve always asked a million questions and at least someone didn’t make it to the end of the movie awake.

During the day, Steve would go down to the lab to draw Tony or Bruce or sometimes to the gym to draw Natasha. Clint spent a lot of his time figuring out how to prank everyone, especially swapping parts of one person’s uniform and weapons for someone else’s. Natasha decided to teach Bruce and Tony some self-defense after she decided they relied too much on the Hulk and on Tony’s suits. Thor came and went, splitting his time between them and Asgard and Jane, but they all knew when he arrived because he searched them all out for bone-crushing hugs.

They ate dinners together (Steve was a surprisingly good chef and baker) and went to galas that Tony forced them to attend. They had game nights on the weekends, sometimes even without alcohol, and even on occasion had barbeques around the rooftop pool. 

They went from being teammates to being friends, but it wasn’t until the night that Tony stayed back to fix the Quinjet, which had been damaged in their last raid, while the others went off on an undercover op that he realized they had become more than that.

Somewhere along the line, these crazy people that Tony hadn’t even wanted to invite over had become his family, the people he longed to see and to spend time with, the people he was getting to know on a deeper level than he had ever known anyone.

“So is this your way of saying you’re not lonely anymore?” Rhodey asked. He was perched beside Tony, drinking a beer, watching him work on the repairs. 

“I was never lonely in the first place,” Tony said.

“You keep telling yourself that.”

“I will,” Tony said, but he was grinning, and he knew Rhodey could tell.

Whatever he had been before — lonely or not — he wasn’t now, and that, for the moment, was all that really mattered.


End file.
